Antiquarian and Classic Book Reviews
Books that have been featured as part of the winter holidays in December.
Both of these volumes are perfect for a night spent inside in the warmth of the fireside. Easy to get lost in, they are easily finished in a sitting and just begging to be turned over in your head or discussed with your favourite bookish friend.
There’s a lot that Clark has added to these stories (and taken out of them) in order to arrive at the masterpiece of film he has produced. He’s done a lot with the original material.
Proust was a man who was very sensitive to noise, and Paris was (and is) a very cacophonous metropolis.
I intentionally saved Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales for Christmas Day because it has become my favourite Christmas story over the years (or, at the very least, it sits in a firm tie with Dickens’ A Christmas Carol).
I decided to review not the entire Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame but, instead, focus on an excerpt of one particular chapter — ‘Dolce Domum’. Or, as I affectionately refer to it, Mole’s Christmas — based on the animated special ITV put out sometime in the 1990s which I watch on Youtube every year to start the holiday season.
When I saw Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas arrive at the local independent bookstore, I leapt at the chance to read something from a writer that my spouse loves while still enjoying the light, fun Christmas-y content.
n many ways, the collection met my expectations. It includes a lot of interesting ephemera from literature, some traditional Christmas classics, as well as excerpts from letters, newspaper items, and a substantial amount of poetry.
I have mixed feelings when it comes to collections like this that include newer work, mostly because I find that usually there is not enough work included to be able to follow a writer’s evolution across time.
I have to confess that I don’t know a lot about Leonard Cohen other than a few songs and a smattering of poetry. That may have helped or hindered my appreciation of this book — though I’m not sure which.
Diana Athill’s After a Funeral details her experience of being friends with a man who is profoundly destructive both to himself and to everyone around him.
